r's death Varro was exposed to the persecution of Antonius,
whose raid on his villa at Casinum is vividly described by Cicero
(_Phil._ ii. 103 _sqq._). He was proscribed, but the devotion of his
friends secured his escape (Appian _B.C._ iv. 47).

His old age was spent in peace, the literary activity for which his
whole life was remarkable being maintained to the end. At the age of
eighty-three he was still writing: Plin. _N.H._ xxix. 65, 'Cunctarer
in proferendo ex his remedio, ni M. Varro lxxxiii vitae anno
prodidisset,' etc.

Varro's death took place in B.C. 27, in his ninetieth year. Jerome yr.
Abr. 1990, 'M. Terentius Varro philosophus prope nonagenarius moritur.'

(2) WORKS.

Cicero (_ad Att._ xiii. 18) calls Varro 'homo +polygraphotatos+,'
and Varro himself said that he had written four hundred and ninety
Books by the end of his seventy-seventh year: Gell. iii. 10, 17,
'Addit se quoque iam duodecimam annorum hebdomadam ingressum esse et
ad eum diem septuaginta hebdomadas librorum conscripsisse.' A letter
of Jerome[30] gives a list of thirty-nine works in four hundred and
ninety Books, admitting at the same time that these were only half of
the total number ('vix medium descripsi indicem'). The titles of
twenty-one other works are known from various sources.

1. _Agriculture._--Of this enormous number only one has survived in a
complete form, the treatise _De Re Rustica_ in three Books, in the
form of a dialogue. Book i. treats of agriculture; ii. of
stock-raising; iii. of poultry, game, and fish. It was written B.C.
37-6: _R.R._ i. 1, 1, 'Annus octogesimus admonet me ut sarcinas
colligam ante quam proficiscar e vita.'

2. _Grammar._--Of the twenty-five books _De Lingua Latina_, only v.-x.
have been preserved, but the scope of the whole is known from Varro's
own words. Book i. was introductory; ii.-vii. dealt with etymology;
viii.-xiii. with inflexions; xiv.-xxv. with syntax. Varro's
derivations are ridiculed by Quintilian i. 6, 37, 'Sed cui non post
Varronem sit venia, qui _agrum_ quia in eo _agatur_ aliquid, et
_graculos_ quia _gregatim_ volent dictos voluit persuadere Ciceroni?'
From Book v. onwards the work was dedicated to Cicero, in return for
his _Academics_; it is announced in Cic. _Ac._ i. 2, where Varro says,
'Habeo opus magnum in manibus, idque iam pridem: ad hunc enim ipsum
(me autem dicebat) quaedam institui, quae et sunt magna sane et
limantur a me politius.' The date of publication was proba